At a recent conference appearance in Beaver Creek, Polis stated that state income tax "should be zero." 

During an appearance last week at the Steamboat Institute's Freedom Conference in Beaver Creek, Governor Jared Polis expressed his support for eliminating income tax through reimagining the state's tax structure. Nine other states have done something similar already. 

In a video of his appearance at the event, he told an event moderator that the state income tax "should be zero." He claimed that taxing something is similar to penalizing an action. 

"There's things you actually want to penalize in society like pollution might be one of them," Polis said. "I would argue that smoking might be one of them ... So if we can move away from taxing income, which is something that you don't want to discourage because we want everybody to make income, we want companies to make income ... to basing it on taxing pollution or carbon or something that we fundamentally don't want, you'll have a more pro-growth tax structure that gets the right incentives in place to help grow what you wanna grow and penalize things that are negative externalities." 

"We can find another way to generate the revenue that doesn't discourage productivity and growth, and you absolutely can, and we should," Polis said. 

In order to actually lower income tax, Polis would need the legislature or a ballot measure. For now, it doesn't seem like Colorado will be joining the list of income tax-free states anytime soon.

While it sounds glamorous to workers, eliminating the state income tax all at once could have harsh reparations on Colorado's economy. Personal income tax revenue makes up about two-thirds of Colorado's General Fund, which covers education, public health, public safety, and more. 

Do you agree with Polis' statement about eliminating income tax? Let us know in the comments.